In correspondence chess, using a database to search for positions to discover what other players have tried is within bounds. But, using a chess engine to analyze a position before making a move would be cheating. What about using a chess program to play out a position from a given point? In that case, the screen could be configured so that it is not recommending moves for you, but only for the opponent. And what about the feature of many database programs that auto-select moves when you are setting up positions? Does that offer an unfair advantage?

of course this would be against the rules I hope. using a a computer to seek the database move.

That is unfair, because you are using a computer.

Predicting your opponent's best moves can be much harder than finding your own.

Using a chess engine in any way is cheating. Using a database consisting of human-human games is not.

Please refer to this page

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/community/chesscom-policy-on-cheating

We provide tools to report cheating to our staff. But having several constant and redundant threads on the topic that circulate with the same questions and comments over and over again isn't helpful, and instead causes people to worry more than they need to. If you want to discuss cheating, please do it in this group

http://www.chess.com/groups/home/cheating-forum